European search technology... I like fast,
because I list there
before google :-)Fast, among the three main search engines, is the best choice to mine the 'deep and obscure' web, and is
getting more reliable every day: the most underestimated search enginge in the world! Its
Advanced Search
is a seekers' dream that came true!
[Only 4010 results viewable]
+,(),-,,",
Special syntax:
normal.title:,
url.host:,
url.all:,
link.all:.Domain exclusion (VERY useful):
-url.tld:com (no com crap),
+url.tld:no (only norway).
Also: link.extension:jpegspiders ending with sac2.fastsearch.net

FAST is indeed pretty
fast :-) But the real value of this engine resides in its linguistic
capabilities (very useful for "non-wasp" searches) and in being a good old BOOLEAN
one (no stopwords... try FAST's to be or not to be and compare with
google's same search
(though google gives my friend's Richard GNU project as answer :-)
FAST delivers moreover a huge number of
'unique hits' (it does not
overlap too much with the other engines).

Note that you can restrict the advanced search to a single domainname (leaving
every other parameter unchecked) and thus get a 'sitemap' of a given
site. Example: FAST's Altavista ad hoc
['sitemap']
Note also that you can find your favourite mp3 songs using the name of the
author (for instance dylan) and stating that the document must include "index of/mp3" in the title: here is FAST's Bob Dylan's ad hoc
[mp3 search] (thank
SaF)
Use the url.host: syntax to find out how many pages of a given site
are
indexed, e.g: q=url.host%3Awww.fravia.com.
For the links, use the link.all: syntax, e.g.:
link.all:www.searchlores.org

Fast index: Do use the very useful 'Result Restrictions' options to
find most recent links to matters you are interested into... for instance:
&q=searchlores &age=3m &hits=100 &nooc=off (see source for complete string)

Fast FTP-search, is one of the
most effective ftp-search possibilities around.
(See the others here)

Fast indexing timespan:
a large portion of fast's index, the so called "popular content", is re-spidered every
seven to 11 days, the remainder is being spidered every month or so. It's spiders did not
always use to go deep inside, but they are now catching up: see if the depths of these three mirrors
of mine are still far apart:
searchlores;
searchlore;
fravia.
Why Fast

Because it is fast. Because it covers parts of the web that are not covered by google.
Because it is less polluted by the useless commercial sites. Because it mines the "deep" and "obscure"
web more than google or teoma. Because it is less censored than google. Because it has ftp searches.
Because SEO-spammers care only for google, hence
they spam Fast less heavily with their fake results
(though, on the other hand, Fast's algo are not so good at keeping "normal" spam at by).
Because it is simply the best main engine for multi-words complex searches. Because it's advanced search
mask is second to none. Because it's boolean, boolean, boolean and boolean
with NESTING parentheses!
Because it gives
a lot better results than google when it comes to quote searching, i.e. you have
a phrase or a sentence and you'd like to find the whole book/text/page whatever.
Because zombies do not use it (it's a 'showcase', still
in development and research search engine, used to
sell "fast search services" to other sites, not a full-fledged mass-used engine). Because
google needs competition. Because Fast is getting better and better. Because it's having
less and less relevance problems. Because Google's results quality has recently dropped.

Useful findings

Various FAST/Alltheweb:
Fast changed name to the orrible 'alltheweb' because "http://www.fast.com/" belongs to some
crap 'fastnet'. Yet the original site is still there at http://www.fast.no/,
in Norway, while http://www.fastsearch.com/ is just a
USA mirror.

FAST suffers spam:
The algos have been seriously improved during 2002, but spam seems still to grow
high on fast, espcially on commercial-related searches (but, then, you would not
use Fast for such searches, ususally).

FAST big size and small relevance:
For a short time,
some years ago, Fast bragged about having an Index bigger than Google. Fast has indeed
a big Index, and covers many sites that Google does not cover. Yet, though catching up,
it has still various relevance problems when compared with Google
(or even Hotbot/Inktomi and Teoma). Yet size matters, of course, if you want a non-skewed
picture of theweb. And if you remember that even the best Search engines (and Fast is
for sure one of them) cover at best one third of the Web, you'll realize that the bigger
MAY not mean more quality, but sure it COULD mean, on the long run, better algos
to individuate quality.

Automatic Language Mapping:
AlltheWeb now determines the country from which a user’s query is originating
and provides relevant results in the user’s local language as well as in
English. For example, if a user situated in Portugal searched on
AlltheWeb, his results would be retrieved and displayed in
Portuguese and English. Although the local language and
English are provided as the default languages, users will still
be able to override the default language by selecting from the
49 languages available through AlltheWeb’s customized settings.
Feature available for web search and news search.

Fast has a small (and filled with automated redirections)
search "sidebar"!